Cultural Core’ in Multi Ethnic Communities and Its Impact on Agrarian Resource Management

The ‘Cultural Core’ in Multi Ethnic Communities and its Impact on Agrarian Resource Management Endriatmo Soetarto STORMA Discussion Paper Series Sub-program A on Social and Economic Dynamics in Rain Forest Margins No. 10 (January 2003) Research Project on Stability of Rain Forest Margins (STORMA) Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under SFB 552 Editorial Board Prof. Dr. Michael Fremerey Institute of Socio-cultural Studies, University of Kassel, Germany Prof. Dr. Bunasor Sanim Faculty of Economics, Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia Dr. M.T. Felix Sitorus Department of Socio-Economic Sciences, Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia Prof. Dr. Manfred Zeller Institute of Rural Development, University of Göttingen, Germany Managing editors Dr. Siawuch Amini Institute of Socio-cultural and Socio-economic Studies, University of Kassel, Germany Dr. Regina Birner Institute of Rural Development, University of Göttingen, Germany Dr. Günter Burkard Institute of Socio-cultural and Socio-economic Studies, University of Kassel, Germany Dr. Heiko Faust Department of Geography, Division of Cultural and Social Geography, University of Göttingen, Germany Dr. Teunis van Rheenen Institute of Rural Development, University of Göttingen, Germany 2 The ‘Cultural Core’ in Multi Ethnic Communities and its Impact on Agrarian Resource Management The Case of Two Villages in the Palolo Valley, Central Sulawesi 1 Endriatmo Soetarto Abstract This paper deals with the application of James Steward’s cultural core theory on multy ethnic communities in a rain forest margin area in Central Sulawesi. The results presented in the paper are based on empirical case studies at two villages in the Palolo valley. An exclusive distinction of residential areas along ethnic lines I both villages leads to the formation of strong cultural cores with exclusive character. Thus a common cultural core does not exist and therefore the implementation of a sustainable land use system is blocked. However, it the individual degree of cultural exclusion is based on the dependence of one ethnic group to the other one. Cultivation methods as applied for wet rice farming e.g. forces the two groups to cooperate and thus gives the opportunity to combine the two different cultural cores to a stable collective one. Keywords: cultural core, ethnic groups, resource management, case study, Central Sulawesi 1 Dr. Endriatmo Soetarto is a lecturer at the Department of Social Sciences and Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agriculture University. 3 Contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................5 1.1 Background ...................................................................................................................5 1.2 Conceptual Framework .................................................................................................5 1.3 Location of Study and Methodology.............................................................................6 2. Typology of the Social Communities of Sintuwu and Berdikari ................................................7 2.1 Setting and Demography of the two village..................................................................7 2.2 Background of the In-Migration of Various Ethnic Groups..........................................7 2.3 Education and Employment Characteristics .................................................................9 3. The ‘Cultural Core’ of a Multi Ethnic Community and its Influence on Environmental Management........................................................................................................................9 3.1 The Ethnic Groups.......................................................................................................10 3.2 Traditional Celebrations and their Relation to the Management of Environment ......10 3.3 Kin Group and its Role................................................................................................ 11 3.4 Migrant Ethnic Groups................................................................................................12 3.5 The Collective Sentiment and the Establishment of a Stable ‘Cultural Core’ ............13 4. The Collective Sentiment and Its Implication for the Establishment of a Stable ‘Cultural Core’ ..................................................................................................................15 4.1 The Establishment of a Collective Sentiment as the Basis for Social Ties in the Village ...........................................................................................................................................15 4.2 The ‘Cultural Core’ of Rice Field Ecology .................................................................16 5. Conclusions ...............................................................................................................................17 6. References .................................................................................................................................18 7. Appendix ...................................................................................................................................19 4 1. Introduction 1.1 Background The Lore Lindu region of Central Sulawesi is both, home of different local ethnic groups and destination for migrants from various, ethnically divers regions of the Indonesian archipelago. This lead to the structure of multi ethnic village communities. As the region under investigation also represents a rain forest margin area with the Lore Lindu National Park at its center, an analysis of the action of those groups becomes an interesting field of research for the investigation of stability and destabilisation of rain forest margins. The complex population composition raises the question of how these different ethnic groups differ in terms of land use and agrarian resource management. 1.2 Conceptual Framework This paper refers to the concept of ‘cultural ecology’. This term, coined by J. Steward (1955), describes the study of the relationship between nature and culture in human societies. According to the holistic view, all aspects of culture are functionally interdependent upon one another. The degree and kind of interdependency, however, are not the same with all features. Steward therefore recommends to isolate a so called ‘cultural core’. There are only a certain number of socio cultural elements which can be categorized as the elements to form the ‘cultural core’. This is due to the very obvious and explicit relationship in a cultural way between the methods of economic life guaranties which are practiced by the community members and the environment. The other socio cultural elements, which relations with economic life and the utilization of environment are not so tight, can be defined as the remainder cultural elements (‘the rest of culture’, Geertz 1974, p.7). Following Steward’s concept, this analysis concentrates on the characteristics of a system’s infiltration into other systems (system structure, system balance, and system change) rather than on the point-to-point relationships between paired variables the of ‘culture’ and ‘environment’ (Geertz 1974, p. 10). If an ecosystem is limited by parallel separation between a relevant ‘culture core’ and ‘environment’, then the main questions in this case are what kind of mechanism regulates such an ecosystem, what degree and type of stability works in that ecosystem and how can we understand the development or declining characteristics occurring in an ecosystem? In reference to this concept it will be illustrated how far the communities which stay in the two research villages in the vicinity of the Lore Lindu National Park (LLNP) in Central Sulawesi form a ‘stable’ or ‘instable’ (destructive) ‘cultural core’. The aim is to analyze whether the ‘cultural core’ makes the degree of stability of the environment stronger or weaker seen from the way the community members get the agrarian resources under their control. It is noted that in the Palolo Valley there are villages inhabited by various ethnic groups, either by the original people from Palolo or by migrants coming from out of Palolo Valley. The latter are presumed to have the potencies to stimulate instability of the environment around the Lore Lindu National Park. 5 This study is leaded by the assumption that in respect to a collective scale every social life always has an ‘optimum momentum’ in its existence to start a productive development. In other words there are certain relatively short and rare moments for the actors of economy, politics and culture on the local level to join together and to prepare a conducive atmosphere in creating a desire and collective actions which will give more welfare to them. If this optimum moment passes without being used, it might needs several generations to come to the same condition. Moreover it is not impossible that before the next optimum moment is reached the community doesn’t exist any more due to their inability to maintain their life (compare to Higgins in Geertz, 1974). The question is whether the local ethnic groups have or have not developed the institutionalized interaction processes among the ethnic groups that they need to create the atmosphere for the formation of a collective sentiment on the village level. Because of its relevancy for the cultural ecology approach this factor becomes a crucial point for the forming of the ‘cultural core’

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